Several teams got their hands on silverware at last in 2025. Here supporters talk about the pain and pleasure of finally winning
16 March 2025: Won Carabao Cup, beating Liverpool 2-1 at Wembley, their first trophy in 56 years
Continue reading...The life of a rugby league referee: fit, fanatical and fuelled by self-belief
A new documentary film shows elite referees are dedicated, passionate and desperate to get decisions right
Fifteen teams are currently grinding their way through pre-season training before the new Super League season. No, the Rugby Football League has not suddenly decided to promote London to the big time. The people who will make the decisions on the pitch without touching the ball are also preparing for the season by hitting the treadmills, pushing weights and running laps at their base in the Etihad Campus in Manchester.
You can get a good idea what that looks like in a new documentary called Beyond the Whistle, which follows the highest-profile British referees through the 2024 season. The 40-minute film focuses on the battle between Liam Moore and Chris Kendall to be the league’s top referee, how the group copes when new rules are foisted upon them, and the work done by head of match officials, Phil Bentham.
Continue reading...Rugby brain injury case suffers huge blow after judge rejects court appeal
Up to 80% of league and 20% of union claims face strike-out
Appeal over medical record disclosure denied on all grounds
Two appeals launched by the legal firm representing former players in rugby league and rugby union have both been denied in a significant blow to the ongoing legal action about brain damage caused by the sport. It means that after five years of legal arguments a large number of the claimants in both codes face the risk of having their cases struck out before they come to trial.
The appeal judge, Mr Justice Dexter Dias, ruled that the judge presiding over the management of the case, Senior Master Jeremy Cook, had been right to find that the claimants firm, Rylands Garth, had failed to fulfil its obligations to disclose necessary medical material to the defendants, World Rugby, the Wales Rugby Union, and the Rugby Football Union in one case, and the Rugby Football League in the other.
Continue reading...Rory McIlroy named Sports Personality of the Year to end golf’s drought
Masters champion is first golfer in 36 years to claim award
Kildunne finishes second in vote and Norris third
Ryder Cup side win team award and Wiegman coach prize
A full-throated “Rory roar” reverberated around MediaCity in Salford as Rory McIlroy became the first golfer in 36 years to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award – and tie a bow on a year for the ages.
It was a fitting reward for the 36-year-old, who completed a career grand slam at the Masters in April and then led Europe to a thrilling Ryder Cup victory in New York, in the teeth of unrelenting hostility from American fans. For good measure, he also won the European Order of Merit too.
Continue reading...BBC Sports Personality of the Year: why each shortlisted contender should win
From Hannah Hampton to Lando Norris, our experts give their view on why each nominee is a worthy winner
No sporting event in 2025 gripped England quite like the Lionesses’ Euros success and that euphoria would not have happened without Hannah Hampton’s saves. Long before Hampton dived the correct way to stop two Spain penalties in the final, including one from the world’s best player Aitana Bonmatí, she had produced heroics, without which the team would have flown home disappointingly early.
Continue reading...It’s Lionesses v Red Roses v Rory’s Europe as BBC names Spoty team of year shortlist
Public vote will decide winner among back-to-back European champions, Rugby World Cup winners and Team Europe
England’s Lionesses are up against their rugby union counterparts, the Red Roses, and Europe’s winning Ryder Cup side on the shortlist for team of the year at the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award.
For the first time the BBC have swerved having to make the call themselves by making the team award a public vote, with the winners to be announced live at the ceremony on December 18.
Continue reading...Ex-Alice Springs school principal spared jail for assaulting Indigenous students
Gavin Morris, a former NRL referee, found guilty of putting pupils in choke holds and twisting their ears
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A former NRL referee has been spared jail after abusing his position of trust as a school principal by putting Indigenous students into choke holds and painfully twisting their ears.
Gavin Morris was found guilty of four counts of aggravated assault and on Thursday was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment fully suspended for two years on condition he be of good behaviour.
Continue reading...Sports Personality of the Year 2025: Lionesses square off on six-strong shortlist
Chloe Kelly and Hannah Hampton make the shortlist
McIlroy, Littler, Norris and Kildunne also up for award
The England teammates Chloe Kelly and Hannah Hampton are up against one another for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award on a shortlist that also includes Lando Norris, Rory McIlroy, Luke Littler and Ellie Kildunne.
Kelly and Hampton were at the centre of England’s dramatic penalty shootout win over Spain in the Euro 2025 final, with Kelly scoring the winning spot-kick after Hampton had made two critical saves. For Kelly, it came after a difficult period personally, but after leaving Manchester City for Arsenal within months she was a European champion and Champions League winner. Hampton’s heroics saw the Chelsea stopper win the Yashin Trophy for the world’s best female goalkeeper at the Ballon d’Or awards.
Continue reading...Barry O’Farrell to be reinstated as Wests Tigers chair after club owners bow to NRL pressure
Four independent directors sacked by Holman Barnes Group invited back
No bearing on Shane Richardson’s exit as hunt for new CEO starts
Barry O’Farrell is set to return as Wests Tigers chair alongside his ousted independent directors after the joint-venture club’s owners bowed to NRL demands.
In the latest bizarre twist after 10 days of Tigers turmoil, the Holman Barnes Group (HBG) on Thursday agreed to invite back the board members sacked last Monday.
Continue reading...Etzebeth accepts 12-week ban but claims eye-gouge ‘was never intentional’
‘I would never do something like this on purpose’
South Africa lock accepts 12-week suspension
Eben Etzebeth, the Springboks lock serving a 12-week ban for eye-gouging Alex Mann of Wales, has claimed it was “never intentional”, contradicting the verdict of an independent disciplinary committee announced last week.
In an Instagram post on Wednesday the Sharks second row accepted guilt and apologised, saying “unfortunately mistakes happen”. The 34-year-old double Rugby World Cup winner also appeared to distance himself from the act by drawing attention to “other factors”. Along with three videos accompanying the post, Etzebeth claimed two Welsh players involved in the fracas, along with Mann, changed “the dynamic of the entire picture”.
Continue reading...NRL proposes heavy bans for Tonga doctors and trainer over Eli Katoa head knocks
Head doctor, assistant doctor and head trainer issued breach notices
Storm player to sit out 2026 season after surgery for bleeding on brain
The NRL is proposing to ban three members of Tonga’s medical staff for two years, claiming serious concerns over the handling of Eliesa Katoa’s multiple head knocks.
More than a month after Katoa required surgery for bleeding on the brain following seizure activity, the NRL handed down findings into the matter on Monday.
Continue reading...Five years on: rugby’s brain damaged players wait and wait for the help they need
In 2020 Steve Thompson revealed he could not remember winning the Rugby World Cup and since then his case and others have been caught up in a warren of legal argument
The Royal Courts of Justice are a warren. They were built piecemeal over 125 years of intermittent construction, wings were added, blocks were expanded and then joined by a web of twisting staircases and long corridors. You navigate your way to whichever corner of it you have business in by checking the tiny print on the long daily case lists that are posted in the lobby early each morning, when the building always seems to be full of people hurrying in the other direction. For the last three years, three separate sets of legal action about brain damage in sport have been slowly making their way through here, lost in the hallways.
One is in football, one is in rugby union, one is in rugby league. The same small firm, Rylands Garth, is behind all three. Sometimes these hearings take place in the modern rooms of the east block, where the carpet is peeling and the roofs are gap-toothed with missing panels, and sometimes they take place in the cold old stone rooms off the great hall, which are wood-cladded, and contain rows and rows of heavy leather-bound books. Progress is slow. Events often go unreported.
Continue reading...Sports quiz of the week: Premier League goals, Ashes centuries and the F1 finale
Have you been following the big stories in football, cricket, motor sport, rugby union and snooker?
Continue reading...South Africa’s Eben Etzebeth handed 12-match ban for eye-gouging against Wales
Lock sent off in Cardiff during Springboks’ 73-0 win
Suspension covers matches until end of March
South Africa’s Eben Etzebeth has been suspended for 12 matches for eye-gouging against Wales last weekend.
The suspension covers matches for the Durban-based Sharks starting from this weekend to the end of March. The Sharks deregistered Etzebeth this week in anticipation of a lengthy ban.
Continue reading...Maro Itoje eyes World Cup glory after England dodge big guns in 2027 draw
England ‘welcome whatever comes’ says bullish captain
Wales’ Tandy ‘unbelievably excited’ by England clash
Maro Itoje has set his sights on Rugby World Cup glory in Australia in 2027 after England were handed a favourable potential path through the tournament when the draw was made in Sydney on Wednesday.
Steve Borthwick’s side, who have risen to third in the world rankings after an 11-match winning streak, emerged on the other side of the draw from the reigning world champions South Africa, three-times winners New Zealand and France.
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